This post is more of a record of something that I have finished, than the usual waffle. In this case it’s two copies of the two part plastic hill that was supplied in the Battle of Five Armies box in 2005 or so.

The hill is the irregularly shaped grey thing in the top right of the pic, obviously enough.

About ten years ago, theottovonbismark mentioned that the BoFA hill might look decent as coastline in Man O’ War games. At the time I had no interest in doing that, but now I do, so I permanently borrowed a second hill set (thanks PB1!) and painted them yesterday.

The substantially sized hill (each piece measures 200 x 390mm approx) slots together in two ways, creating either a narrow, long spur or a broader piece. Its designed to sit on the table edge, something that I really quite like visually, so I imagine that is how the pieces will be used primarily.

I also like the idea of using the pieces to define the entrance to a harbour or a throughway in an atoll, maybe denoting where reinforcements arrive or where an escaping ship has to exit the table.

I was tempted to add some detailed elements to the pieces – settlements or the appearance of a forest – but I decided to not to for three reasons:

Time: I have too many other hobby things to get done than to spend more time on these.

Modularity: keeping the hill elements scale agnostic means that I can use them in other games and photos easily.

Primarily though, the hills will be used to help with composition when I get around to taking some better photos of painted Man O’ War items in the future. The painted terrain from Dreadfleet provides plenty of up-to-eleven focal points, while the new coastal bits will work well as more neutral backdrops.

Hopefully the next batch of photos will look a little better than these snaps, although I think that they get the message across anyway.